Sunday, May 8, 2011

Petrol gauge anxiety

By nature, I tend to be an anxious type of person. I think I've gotten a little bit better over time. Having a fairly laid back husband helps. And funnily enough, as I've had more kids, in some ways I've become calmer. Not in everything, but if I still worried about all the stuff I used to, I would be a nervous wreck.

But there are a couple of things that I still get anxious about. The petrol gauge falling below a quarter of a tank is one of them. I'm not sure why I still worry about this. I've never ever run out of petrol. But when the tank shows a quarter or less I start to get stressed. I constantly look at it while I'm driving to check the little warning light hasn't come on.

The other night I went out by myself in the evening. Chris told me there should be heaps of petrol in the car to get me where I needed to go and home again. When I got into the car, I saw the little needle below a quarter and immediately felt my stress levels go up. I was running late to get where I needed to go, I knew by the time I came home, all the petrol stations would be closed. What to do? Compulsively check, that's what. It's very distracting. Fortunately there wasn't a lot of other traffic on the road.

And of course, he was right. I made it there and back with no problems. The warning light didn't even go on.

I'm not sure why I'm like this. Maybe it's because I first started driving around the same time I started my first job. It was a job out in the country where I had to do lots of driving between small towns and out and about doing home visits. One of the rules was that you had to fill up work cars when the tank showed under a quarter. I was very good at making sure that got done. And if I was driving anywhere in my own car, if I was by myself and ran out of petrol, I would have been stranded. Mobile phones weren't around back then.

But even though times have changed since then, I still can't seem to lose the fear of driving with a low tank of fuel. I think I might need to do some cognitive-behavioural therapy so I can move on.

1 comment:

In my marriage, I'm the 'extreme' personality and my husband is the calm one. Sometimes I find it irritating that he can be so calm, but other times I thank God that he is because if he were like me, we'd both be stressing each other out.

How funny that you mentioned the petrol gauge. I was talking to my husband about that two days ago. I was starting to get a bit stressed because it was 'in the red' even though the low fuel warning hadn't gone off. He assured that even when the warning goes off, I still have 90km worth of fuel. I think I get more stressed about this cos we live in the country and I'd hate to be stranded.

The Daily Puppy

About Me

Me, married to Chris, Mum of four kids (A, L and the two Rs), a Christian, loves good books, different viewpoints, baking sweet things, taking photos and trying to play Chopin's nocturnes on the piano. When I have a paid working life I'm an occupational therapist who works with children.